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Frankenstein: Shelley's Take on Advancements 883 Views


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Description:

When we picture the future, we imagine giant man-smartphone hybrids as our overlords. We wonder if Mary Shelley would agree with us.


Transcript

00:01

We speak student!

00:09

This guy means business.

00:13

Frankenstein a la Shmoop

00:16

What's Shelley's take on

00:17

scientific and technological advancements?

00:21

It's pretty easy to just read Frankenstein and be like,

00:24

"Oh! Anti-science."

00:26

- Prometheus. - Exactly.

00:27

I mean, that's the subtitle of the book.

00:28

But it's kind of like,

00:30

"Oh, hey, yeah. This guy tried to use science to create life

00:34

and it failed miserably and everyone died."

00:36

Okay. But, you know, I would say that Frankenstein

00:39

isn't really a completely anti-science creed at its core.

00:44

Clearly, Mary Shelley's living in a time

00:46

of scientific advancement.

00:47

She saw the benefits of it.

00:51

But I think what we're seeing isn't this knee-jerk reaction against it,

00:56

but more that nagging feeling

00:58

that comes to us.

00:59

We get that feeling now

01:01

with all the crazy technological advancements.

01:03

You know, that like [ hesitant sound ].

01:05

Is this everyone being on their iPhone all the time

01:08

gonna come back to bite us?

01:10

Are robots going to take over the world?

01:13

We have this nagging feeling of

01:15

yeah, we love the Internet.

01:16

We couldn't survive without all these technological advancements.

01:19

But there is that nagging feeling of, you know --

01:21

- Chernobyl. - Yeah, exactly.

01:23

Exactly. Something terrible's about to happen.

01:25

So I would say it's kind of more of a balance in that,

01:27

where she's kind of saying,

01:29

"It's not necessarily bad, but we have to, you know,

01:31

we have to remember that there is the chance

01:34

that it is gonna turn out badly."

01:39

What arguments suggest Shelley was anti-science?

01:43

What arguments suggest Shelley was pro-science?

01:49

[ horror film echoing effect ]

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